When did left wingery become associated with being pro-EU? It’s a good question.

”“One of the great mysteries of British politics is how being pro-EU came to be seen as a left-wing thing. The EU is pro-banker and pro-bosses. It hammered the Greek working class. It sneers at Italian voters. The left should be raging against the EU.”

It might just be in the UK that being pro-EU is associated with being Left Wing. What is seen as left or right often flips when we cross the Channel, but it’s definitely the case here that being pro-EU has become more associated with leftism. Labour MP Chuka Umunna said exactly that this week, but he doesn’t know his history. As well as Foot, Benn and Castle, post-war Labour giants such as Hugh Gaitskell and Clement Attlee were firmly opposed to any UK involvement with European integration. Labour contested the 1983 General Election on a promise to take us out of the then EEC.

For some leftists it’s simply favouring what people you dislike happen to dislike. They associate being anti-EU with being white and patriotic, therefore they support the EU. It was during the 1980s that anti-patriotism began to take root across the left. But this still doesn’t explain it all. I’ve always thought that being anti-EU is naturally left wing. Criticisms laid out by Brendan O’Neill sit at the heart of the leftist tradition, but such arguments seem to be ignored.

47 Responses to “A GOOD QUESTION”

I would disagree. Most of the same arguments are present in most countries on the continent. And generally there is a eurosceptic far-left on the continent, and a eurosceptic far-right on the continent. Most other political parties are generally pro-EU. So what changes when you cross the Channel is the prescence of centre-right euroscepticism, which is largely out of place in most European countries. Go to all most all countries in the EU and the centre-right (the CDU in Germany, the Gaullists in France, the PP in Spain, the DC in and most of the various Berlusconi parties in Italy etc…) are all pro-EU. You rarely have a prominent centre-right party in the EU who is eurosceptic to some degree (the Tories being the main one, PiS in Poland, a few smaller parties like ODS in the Czech Republic, and to a lesser degree, in terms of euroscepticism, the likes of Fidesz in Hungary).

So the prescence of a centre-right euroscepticism is where things are very different in terms of the EU.

” They associate being anti-EU with being white and patriotic”

Probably not as most left wingers are both white and patriotic.

“As well as Foot, Benn and Castle, post-war Labour giants such as Hugh Gaitskell and Clement Attlee were firmly opposed to any UK involvement with European integration.”

And can the argument not be shifted the other way. For the most part the driest of the dries supported the EU. Thatcher, Keith Joseph, Norman Tebbit, Geoffrey Howe, John Nott, Cecil Parkinson etc… many of who later went on to oppose the EU in later careers. All supported the UK joining the EEC.

Jacques Delors gave a speech at the 1989 TUC Conference. I do not recollect what was said but it went down rather well with the TUC and Labour. After that, they were best of buddies and, it set Mrs.T on the path to Euroscepticism and her famous Brugge Speech in which she said;

We have not turned back the frontiers of the State only to have them imposed on a European level

Many EU Commissioners and senior bods are either Left of Centre, Left, Far-Left, Marxist, Maoist or Communists.

The present Labour leadership is both left wing and pro-Leave. Corbyn and McDonnell have been anti-EU all their political lives and no-one doubts that they both voted Leave in 2016. The day after the referendum Corbyn called on Cameron to activate Article 50 immediately. Their problem is that 80% of Labour members oppose them along with over 90% of Labour MPs.

I think the pro-EU stance of most of the left is a reaction to the fact that the Leave campaign was dominated by right wing nationalists like Farage and Rees-Mogg. The fact remains that there was and is a perfectly respectable left wing case for Leave, and there was and is a Labour Leave organisation:

I can’t speak to leftism in Britain, but in the States, the left is full of what Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick once labeled the “hate America first” crowd. Perhaps the left in the U.K. hates all things British, and looks to the E.U. for “salvation.”

“Many EU Commissioners and senior bods are either Left of Centre, Left, Far-Left, Marxist, Maoist or Communists.”

Firstly EU Commissioners are appointed by the individual members states. The UK appoints a commissioner. The EU, or other member states, doesn’t get to decide who that is. It is only the sovereign government of the member states.

And generally the governments appoint one of their own. So generally the political beliefs of the commissioner match the government.

As such the current commission actually has a centre-right majority. There are 8 social democrats, 8 conservatives, 7 christian democrats and 5 liberals. So 15 centre-right, 8 centre-left and 5 centre.

Likewise, there’s a distinct whiff of “hate Britain first” about the British progressive left (as opposed to the patriotic Old Left). The same crowd is keen on mass immigration and internationalism.

They’re not new. Orwell famously had their card marked:

“In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanized. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought. England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always anti-British.”

In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always anti-British

Now, I don’t agree with that but you do, and it completely decimates your premise in the opening comments quoted above

No Pete, what you’ve done is ask and forward an opinion about ‘the left’ and then invent a sub division which you previously didn’t refer to when it was pointed out to you that your references are contradictory, trying to suggest that Orwel was referring to the ‘Marxist, internationalist, today pro-EU’ in 1941 when in fact he was referring to ‘the left’

Tony Benn was an Old Left socialist. Pretty far left, but an old fashioned, Old Left, democratic socialist.

Corbyn and McDonnell are authoritarian Marxists. John McDonnell paraded today with the Hammer & Sickle in London. What’s democratic about that? Nothing of course, but that’s him and Corbyn.

They’ve both been happy to let the erroneous link with Benn persist, because Benn was anti-EU and a democrat, but Corbyn and McDonnell are not democrats and they oppose the EU for very different reasons than Benn opposed it.

Corbyn and McDonnell were always Bennites, always anti-EU and still anti-EU for the same reasons that Benn was anti-EU. Because the EU is a neo-liberal experiment in abolishing democracy at a national level and replacing it with a borderless (at least internally) technocracy, hostile to the very idea of nationality and certainly hostile to anything which opposes the globalist agenda of Wall Street and the City of London.

The socialist Old Left has little in common with progressivism (PC/Marxism).

Jesus Christ man don’t be so obdurate, it’s there in front of you. That ‘PC Marxism’ that you’re barking on about didn’t exist in 1941 when Orwell wrote the piece you cite. Unless Orwell had a time machine you’re talking spheres.

But Corbyn and McDonnell are not democrats

Unlike yourself?

Honestly, the bollocks you tie yourself up in with your chicanery becomes more surreal every day.

Pete, stop trying to split hairs. That ‘progressivism (PC/Marxism)’ rubbish that you’re referring to didn’t exist in 1941 and to suggest that the Frankfurt school or Antonio Gramsci were widely known in Britain let alone had a following is ridiculous.

Seamus is correct above, Orwell is referring to the ‘old left’ that you’re banging on about.

You’ve invented a sub division for your claims when it was pointed out that your original claims were contradictory, which is par for the course really.

Corbyn and McDonnell are not democrats. They do not oppose the EU because it is anti-democratic (which it is). Their opposition is to the EU’s pan-European corporatism. If the EU were another Soviet block they would fully support it.

Seamus is correct above, Orwell is referring to the ‘old left’ that you’re banging on about.

Seamus is as ignorant as you on this. Stick to music.

Strewth, Orwell even states in that passage that he’s referring to the intelligentsia and to intellectuals. If you can’t even see spot that clue, or you think that the coal mines and ship yards were populated by the same, you can’t be helped.

Social media posts from the University of Illinois campus police are encouraging students to report “acts of intolerance” to the school’s Bias Assessment and Response Team.

At least one officer for the University of Illinois is a member of the school’s bias response team. This certainly conflates physical safety with being uncomfortable around non-politically correct individuals.

A ‘Bias Response Team’ – to close down bias i.e. unacceptable opinion.

I read elsewhere that Dr James Watson has had his honours revoked because he had told a magazine in 2007 he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” as “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – where all the testing says not really” and made clear that there was nothing to change his opinion

No wonder German shares have been plummeting faster than the speed of light?

Following Guido’s article about fears of a German economic recession last week, Bank of America Merrill Lynch is now “tracking a recession” in Germany. Recognising the gravity of the situation, they explicitly say: “Are we overreacting? We don’t think so.”

Their German GDP tracker has deteriorated to -0.1% quarter-on-quarter, mean that Germany is heading towards the two consecutive quarters of negative growth defined as a technical recession. BAML point to extremely weak factory orders as well as the gilet jaunes disruptions in France for the continued downturn. Britain on the other hand is the fastest growing European country in the G7…

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EppingBlogger Hugh Janus
25 minutes ago
It really is not a surprise to many Brexiteers that it should be the Remainers (who claim virtue in salivating at anything European and even more if French or German) while accusing us of having no empathy with Europe.

In fact the evidence is the other way.

Remainers seem to just want to be told what to do.

Brexiteers genuinely want Europe to prosper and to cooperate. the activities of Remainers and of the EU have tested our patience so it is not surprising we sometimes take satisfaction when the miracle of EU economies is shown to be, err – crap

A company is selling a ‘Brexit Box’ survival kit to gullible Remainers, presumably fearful that after Brexit the country will revert to a medieval subsistence state without the means to access heating, food, or clean water. Sounds like the Green Party’s ideal future…

The box contains “60 servings of main meals + 48 portions of meats + water filter + firestarter” for a Recommended Retail Price of £384.61.

Guido has gone to the trouble of calculating the cost of what goes in to the box, buying regular individual tins and packeted food from high street supermarkets. Even with generously high assumptions, Guido makes the total cost of this Brexit Box’s food, filtered water bottle, and fire lighter to be £91.55.

Presumably the makers of the box assume the self defined intellectually superior Remainer class will be suckers enough to spend an £293.06 more than if they had just popped down to the local shop. The box makers appear to be right, hundreds have been bought by ultra-Remain suckers…

David Vance Live 21.1.19. Topics. Plan B for banjaxed? Irish terrorism to stop Brexit? Native American and fake new… pscp.tv/w/bxYgbzI0OTEx…

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